You need: nothing is needed; only a place full of stones.

Stones fascinate us, children and adults alike. Sometimes we just walk on them, rushing, but all we have to do is slow down, pause and look under our feet. And then you start to see the treasures. Each one is different. Let the calm and stability of the stones slow your days down. Find a suitable place or stony path and immerse yourself and the children in stone games.

TIP: It's even more powerful when you connect stones and water. For example, if you stop at a stream, river, puddle, or bring a bowl of water to a pile of stones, then miracles happen.

Ideas on how to do this. Find boulders, stones, pebbles; you can look for and choose from them:

- the prettiest,
- the smoothest,
- the roundest,
- look for opposites,
- stack them up and build walls or shapes out of them,
- move them around,
- throw them,
- balance them on your foot, on your head, on your nose, etc..,
- stroke them,
- use them for a massage,
- carve something with them,
- tap them against each other,
- explore what they remind you of,
- tell stories about them,
- hide them like treasure,
- awaken the characters in them and invite them to play,
- build a stone den for goblins,
- hide them in a box to make a rattling musical instrument,
- make them into a tool for creating in nature,
and many other fun games.

TIP: make a little stone pit in your area, in addition to a sandpit. A place where you collect found pebbles (e.g. a box, bucket, pile under a tree). Make a village of little trolls, draw little eyes and noses on the stones in your stone pit and hide them so you can't tell they are trolls, then turn them around and let them all smile at the world.

TIP: For children who have been sitting inside for a long time, it's important to give them plenty of running and romping around before experiencing the nature activities.

You need: nothing is needed, just natural materials, if the children want they can add strings and other items

A landscape doesn't have to span vast distances between horizons; it can be as small as a square meter, a tree stump, or a pot.

This is the landscape of children who can't reach over the horizon (yet). Children are happy to create beautiful houses, farms and battlefields in a small place. Find a suitable place and try to build your little worlds. If necessary, show the children how to do it. Then everyone can unleash their imagination and create independently or together in a group. You can also add characters from natural materials as inhabitants of the small worlds.

TIP: If someone is tired of building houses in small worlds, give them a different challenge. Have them build a model of the playground they would like to have for themselves and their friends.

To finish, it's a good idea to walk through all the buildings and imagine the stories that could take place there. Who lives here? What does he or she like here? Where does he rest? Where does he get his goodies?

TIP: Place your little elves (characters made from natural materials) in your microworld. Then show your landscape to your parents or friends, will they find all the elves you have hidden??

You need: nothing is needed just a willingness to listen

The wind is a messenger that carries many messages to us or from us - sounds drift on the waves of the wind. Have you ever noticed how many sounds are around us? And how do they affect us?

Walk away from the road, path and village until you hear no "human" sound, listen to your own breathing, stand still and watch nature return to its natural sounds. Which natural sounds will you hear first?

Find a comfortable spot and try to just listen for a while with your eyes closed. If this is still challenging for the children, just hold on for a moment (perhaps half a minute) and gradually extend the time on subsequent visits.

TIP: SOUND MAP

You need: paper, pencil, crayons

If you want, you can draw a sound map. Draw a circle on paper to represent the space around you. Then listen to the sounds and gradually draw or write down what you hear where. Play the same game outside in nature, in an urban area, by the road or inside a room. How are they different? Where do you feel the most comfortable?

You need: you don't need anything special, just the desire to explore

Where is water all around us? And what sounds does it make? Take a moment to talk with the children and guess where water is hidden and what its sounds are.

1. Listen if you can hear water somewhere under the roof. In the apartment, house, school, kindergarten.

2. Go for a walk and listen to the water outside among the houses and in nature, in the park, in the garden, in the woods or by the stream.

3. At a stream, near puddles, or ponds, you can try to step into shallow water and listen to it really closely. What sounds does it make? With your eyes closed, try sitting on the bank of running water or just the splashing edge of a pond, listen to the rain and the wind in the canopy. Listen until all you can focus on is the water. Imagine you are sitting on the edge of Niagara or the seashore.

Compare the sound of a spring, a stream and a river. Listen to the sound of reeds, frogs and birds around the water.

(4.) For the brave. Listen to the water underwater, dive into a pond or stream, close your eyes, plug your nose and let yourself be carried away by the silence of the pond or the gurgling of a wild river.

TIP: You can stick up a large piece of paper and draw or write down your observations and listening to the water not just for a day, but for a week or a month, maybe even a year.

You need: you don't need anything special, a few strings and a knife may come in handy (not necessary)

You can have fun by the creek even in colder weather. Try making simple boats out of leaves, bark or grass and organize races or a joint expedition.

Instead of boats, you can send wreaths or small bouquets of flowers downstream. And finally, don't forget to build a few dams on the stream and watch how a new still or small pool is created and how the water jumps over the dam on the stones. Where this might be a problem, you might want to unfold your building again at the end.

IMPORTANT: Similar games are a great opportunity to develop children's sensitivity. Encourage them to keep an eye on whether the rocks from the creek are home to other organisms that can be harmed by our buildings.

Make little elves out of whatever you have around and let them sail on your boats. See how many elves the boat can carry and how many will make it to their destination. Don't worry if they fall overboard, water elves love the water, they'd jump in and swim off into the distance anyway.

TIP: If the kids are interested, pack out a few of their favourite characters and let them sail the water.

You need: you don't need anything special, a magnifying glass, paper frames, a camera or drawing papers can be useful

Even colder weather has great power. Just go outside and look around. Take a little unconventional approach today. You're entering a unique gallery. There's an exhibition waiting for you, subject to the availability of the current offer.

Icy, snowy, muddy, windy or rainy. There are so many possibilities and each one of them is unique. As you stroll through the exhibit, go slowly and look for paintings, sculptures, unique nooks and crannies you haven't seen before.

At an appropriate place, you can split up and everybody look for their special piece of art or place. Then show them to each other.

TIP: You can make notes, draw, take pictures or shoot your unique paintings and sculptures. You might even create a "catalog" for the outdoor gallery that can work as an invitation for your community.

You need: a tree, preferably a large tree with wrinkled, jagged bark

This activity is inspired by the book Toby Alone (de Fombelle, 2006).

Little Tobias and his people are only two or three millimetres tall and their tree is their planet.

In the branches are their dwellings, fields, aphid pastures, moss forests, shady and sunny places.

Try to find such places, make a little Tobias (out of a nut, acorn or small stone) and find a place in the tree where he would like it.

Choose a big old tree and try to name the different little nooks and crannies of the tree through the eyes of Tobias. Find the Rift Valley, the Ancient Wood, the Lake, the Sunny Heights, the Wild Rocks, the Bottomless Abyss, the Windy Hill, the Abandoned Mines, the Dark Marshes or the Shady Forest.